2 74 



NATURE 



{Jan. 25, 1S77 



cinien of the basking shark had been captured entangled in some 

 salmon nets off the south shore of Conception Bay in August, 

 1876. Mr. Harvey thinks that the shark was probably feeding 

 on caplin, as the Bay was full of shoals of this little fish. The 

 teeth in his dried specimen were about a quarter of an inch in 

 length, though probably in the fresh state they hardly projected 

 beyond the gums. For other details we would refer Mr. Harvey 

 to Prof. Pavesi's memoir quoted above, with the hope that he 

 may still further continue his interesting investigation of the 

 fauna of Newfoundland, — Ed.] 



The "Challenger" Collections 



It is a rather remarkable proof of the increased interest taken 

 in natural science, that no one worth listening to has ventured to 

 make a remark in disparagement of the Challenge}' expedition, or 

 to utter a growl at the liberal support accorded to it from the 

 national fund. This goes far to show that extensive classes of 

 the community are able in various degrees to appreciate the 

 objects and results of the expedition. One of these results is the 

 collection of specimens in natural history. It is on the final 

 destination of this collection that I wish to offer a suggestion. 

 Within my own recollection it would have been difiicult to name 

 half-a-dozen public museums in Great Britain and Ireland where 

 a series of objects, such as could be formed out of the duplicates 

 in the Challenger collection, would be sure of meeting with a 

 suitable reception. The number now would probably exceed a 

 score, exclusive of museums in public colleges and schools ; at a 

 rough estimate the total number may be put down as at least 

 forty. The supporters of these museums, as public tax-payers, 

 have willingly contributed towards the expenses of the late noble 

 and successful expedition ; but it is not alone on this ground 

 that I wculd respectfully urge a recognition of their claim to 

 share in the treasure trove, but rather on the ground of the 

 impulse that might be given to the study of natural science, and 

 to the cordial support of plans for further expeditions of a like 

 character. 



For reasons which will be obvious on reflection, it would be a 

 great saving of time and trouble to those engaged in the arrange- 

 ment of the specimens if public museums were invited to send 

 in, on or before a certain fixed day, to some central board, an 

 expression of their desire to participate in the benefit of the 

 Challenger collections, at the same time stating the grounds of 

 their claim, and the department in natural science in which they 

 would prefer to receive contributions. The examination and 

 determination of these applications must be a work of time, 

 therefore the sooner the plan is set on foot the better. Mono- 

 graphs will probably be published, and museums will purchase 

 them ; but they cj.nnot buy the specimens, and the value of the 

 monographs to any institution will be increased tenfold by the 

 possession of authenticated specimens of some of the species 

 described. Of course there are universities and other centres of 

 scientific teaching which must come first ; but I respectfully and 

 earnestly protest against drawing the line of exclusion too strin- 

 gently. There is now a great national opportunity for encour- 

 aging in a substantial way the instruction , given in lectures and 

 science classes, which often languishes for want of illustrations. 

 I know of stores of natural history treasures. If only they had 

 been dispensed in wisely apportioned nuclei, how valuable, by 

 this time, might have been the collections accumulated round 

 them. If selection amongst the claimants be impossible, might 

 not series be made up for loan or sale? It will be unworthy of 

 the way in which the Challenger work has been done, if even a 

 single Rhizopod shall find its resting-place in a dust-hole. 



Henry H. Higgins 



Traces of Pre-Glacial Man in America 



In Nature, vol. xv. p. 87, you have given an outline of a paper 

 by Prof. Hughes, read before the Cambridge Philosophical 

 Society, " in which he criticised the evidence offered to support 

 the view that man existed on the earth during or before the 

 glacial period." As concerning the question of the antiquity of 

 man in North America, I would first call attention to the re- 

 marks on this subject by the late Prof. Jeffries Wyman, the 

 most cautious and careful of archaeologists, who writes : ^ " The 

 ancient remains found in California, brought to the notice of the 

 scientific world by Prof. J. D. Whitney, and referred by him to 



» " Fresh Water Shell-mounds of Florida." Fourth Memoir of Peabody 

 Academy, Salem, Mass., U.S.A., December 1874, p. 45. 



the Tertiary period, &c," to which is added a footnote, that ^'' the 

 ample evidence collected by Prof. V/Iiitney, Imt not yet published, 

 subslantiites the opinion given above with regard to a^e. The 

 omission of the Calaveras skull would not weaken the evidence as to 

 the existence 0/ man in the Tertiary period in California." Inas- 

 much as the G'acial period occurred at the close of the Tertiary 

 period, if Prof. Whitney's discoveries are conclusive, as to this 

 side of the Atlantic, does it not follow that man must have existed, 

 certainly in Asia, prior to the glacial epoch ? We are assured 

 by all ethnologists, that man migrated from Asia to America, 

 and now we are offered proofs of his American sojourn, of a 

 date preceding the occurrence of glacial conditions. Speaking 

 of the Eskimo, Dr. Peschel remarks ^ : " The identity of 

 their language with that of the Namollo, their skill on the sea, 

 their domestication of the dog, their use of the sledge, the Mon- 

 golian type of their faces, their capability for higher civilisation, 

 are sufficient reasons for answering the question, whether a mi- 

 gration took place from Asia to America, or conversely from 

 America to Asia, in favour of the former alternative ; yet such 

 a migration from Asia, by way of Behring's Straits, must have 

 occurred at a much later period than the first colonisation of the 

 New World from the Old one." Again, in speaking of the Red 

 Indians, he remarks " : "It is not impassible that the first mi- 

 grations took place at a time when what is now the channel of 

 Behring's Straits was occupied by an isthmus. The climate of 

 those northern shores must then have been much milder than at 

 the present day, for no currents from the Frozen Ocean could 

 have penetrated into the Pacific." This reference to a milder 

 climate must necessarily refer to the genial warmth of Pliocene 

 times ; for scarcely under other circumstances can we find time 

 enough to explain the various phases of lost civilisations, es- 

 pecially in South America. Whether or not the supposed traces 

 of glacial and pre-glacial man in Europe be really such — if the 

 archseology of North America has, so far, been correctly inter- 

 preted — then, unless they have been totally destroyed, unques- 

 tionable traces of such early man will be ultimately discovered ; 

 but if such " finds " should never gladden English archasologists, 

 the earnest workers in America have rendered it certainly true 

 that in Asia, and doubtless in Europe, man did exist during the 

 closing epoch of the Tertiary period, if there is, indeed, no error 

 in the supposition that our American aborigines migrated from 

 the Old World. Chas. C. Abbott 



Trenton, N.J., U.S.A., December 16, 1876 



Glacial Drift in California 



In a recent letter from my brother residing in California, he 

 describes a curious moraine or drift formation, which may, per- 

 haps, be as new to some of your readers as it was to myself. 

 His description, with a few verbal alterations, is as follows : — 



" The plains for a distance of from five to twenty miles from 

 the foot of the Sierra Nevada are covered with what are locally 

 termed * hog- wallows.' The surface thus designated may'; be 

 represented on a small scale by covering the bottom of a large 

 flat dish with eggs distributed so that their longer axes shall lie at 

 various angles with one another, and then filling the dish with 

 fine sand to a little more than half the height of the eggs. The 

 surface of the sand and of those parts of the eggs which rise 

 above it, gives a fair representation of the ' hog-wallow ' land. 

 The mounds, which are represented by the eggs, vary from two 

 to five feet in height, and from ten to thirty feet in diameter, 

 some being nearly circular, some oval, while others are more 

 irregular in shape. Those nearest the foot-hills are the largest, 

 and they gradually diminish in size as they extend out into the 

 plain. They are composed of gravel and boulders of irregular 

 sizes, generally covered with a surface-soil, but sometimes bare. 

 These tracts, which are very extensive in some parts of the State, 1 

 have been till lately unexplained ; but it is now generally ad- \ 

 mitted that they are due to the retreat of the broad foot of the 

 glacier, leaving behind it a layer of debris or moraine-matter, 

 which has become arranged in its present form by the innume- 

 rable rills that issued from the retiring sheet of ice. A living 

 glacier has lately been discovered far up in the Sierra Nevada, 

 near the head waters of the San Joaquim River." 



Perhaps some of your geological readers may know it any similar 

 formations occur elsewhere ; and may favour us with their views 

 as to whether so extensive and uniform a deposit could be due 

 a retreating glacier alone, or would not rather require the agency 



I " Races of Man," by Dr. Oscar Peschel- New York, 1876, p. 396 



" Ihid., p. 400. 



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